


flicker

by Dresupi



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - TiMER Fusion, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Meet-Cute, POV Multiple, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/pseuds/Dresupi
Summary: Every time their timers come anywhere close to going off, more time gets added.It's all very frustrating.Until it isn't.Or:Five times their timers flickered, and the one time they didn't.





	flicker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thestanceyg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestanceyg/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Stancey!!!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, babe! <3
> 
> Special thanks to Phoenix_173 for the flickering timer idea!!! :D :D :D

1.

 

**DARCY - 23 days: 19 hours: 10 minutes: 34 seconds**

 

* * *

 

Darcy was on a date the first time it happened. Ian was in the middle of ordering his drink, and she was daydreaming, watching the steam rise off her cup of coffee while she waited.

She happened to glance down at her wrist and see the numbers flicker for a moment. They went out, and back on again.  Out to a blank screen. Back on once more. Off. On. Off. On.

Her heart hammered in her chest and she had to excuse herself, had to yank her phone from her pocket and call Jane.

She waved goodbye to Ian, her phone pressed to her ear.

He knew better than to question it. This wasn’t the first time Darcy had run from a room with her bag on one shoulder, her phone cradled on the other against her face.

“What is it?” Jane asked, sounding startled when she picked up.

“Has yours ever flickered?” Darcy asked quickly, forgoing any kind of greeting.

“Has what? My timer?” Jane asked, perplexed.

“Yeah.”

“Well.  No. Not that I’ve seen,” her friend replied. “But I’m not always looking at it like you are.”

“So I should go to the clinic then, that’s what you’re saying?”

“I guess so,” Jane said, exasperated.

The London fog was thick in the air and by the time she ended up at the timer clinic, the air had taken on a decidedly colder nip. And Darcy had left her heavier coat at home. Or at what doubled as home while they were here across the pond.

The doctor called her back after only a short wait. She’d explained her issue to the lady at the front desk, and judging by the expedited manner in which they saw her, it must have been a whopper.

“It flickered?” he asked, seemingly surprised by the knowledge. “I’ve  _ never _ seen one flicker. But there’s a first time for everything. I’ll call the manufacturer and get back to you as soon as possible.”

Twenty-six minutes. As soon as possible was twenty-six minutes.

“A normal occurrence. Nothing to worry about. Probably lost contact with the satellites or something like that. Nothing to worry about as long as there’s a countdown now.”

“There is,” Darcy replied.

“See? Nothing to worry about. I’m sure your soulmate is just a traveler,” the doctor assured her.

 

* * *

 

2.

 

**FITZ - 6 months: 17 days: 4 hours: 54 minutes: 0 seconds**

 

* * *

 

 

He couldn’t remember everything. Fitz could remember some things. But then others were a blur. A question mark.  A big fat mystery.

There were parts of him that were broken.

That much he knew.

But he also knew that his timer was ticking down from a smaller number before the Incident.

He’d been down to weeks.

Only weeks to meet his soulmate when Grant had sent he and Jemma down to the ocean floor.

He’d lost consciousness down at the bottom of the sea. His flashbacks centered around the time he’d spent down there. They’d addled his brain. Taken a spoon and stirred things up. But there were facts that he knew.

And one of those was how long he had on his timer.

When he awoke, it was different.

Everyone told him he was imagining things. Everyone said he was fixating on the wrong thing. That he should focus on getting better.

Everyone, except Mack.

“Look, man, if it’s bothering you, go get the memory analyzed. Find out for sure.”

It made sense. It made definite sense.

Imaginary-Jemma agreed. An analysis was in order.

The SHIELD timer-analyst practically rolled his eyes when Fitz showed up in his office. But Mack’s steady gaze and a morning lull convinced him to see reason.

He plugged Fitz’s timer into the computer, printing off a log.  He was all ready to prove Leopold Fitz wrong, to drag out the butterfly net and haul him back to psych.

Except Leo wasn’t wrong.

He wasn’t wrong at all.

“It says it made a hop from twenty-three days, nineteen hours, ten minutes, thirty-four seconds… to six months, seventeen days, four hours and fifty-four minutes…”

The analyst sounded almost apologetic as he read out the log.

Fitz knew he should feel superior for knowing something was wrong, but instead, he just felt sad. He was going to have to wait so much longer to meet his soulmate now.

But maybe that was a good thing? Maybe it would give him time to find himself again. All of himself. To unscramble his brain and become whole again. To dump the imaginary-Jemma and make peace with everything...

The fact that he couldn’t make up his mind was probably a sign.

 

* * *

 

3.

 

**DARCY - 10 months: 29 days: 02 hours: 37 minutes: 12 seconds**

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Back to the United States?” Darcy asked, her shoulders sagging slightly. “To New York? But I thought we had a good thing with Selvig here? And Ian?”

Jane stopped moving for a moment, reaching over to squeeze Darcy’s shoulder. “You can ask Ian to come back to the States with us if you want.”

Ian wasn’t the issue and Jane knew it. Darcy had watched her timer flicker twice since that first time, and change once when they decided to extend their stay in London.

She was allowing this dumb timer to control her life. She checked it every hour on the hour when she was awake. Probably more now that she knew it could be altered by decisions she made.

“Ian’s got something really cool going on here. Graduate school,” Darcy said lamely. “Why New York? Why not New Mexico? Why not Culver?”

“Because… Tony Stark’s got a state of the art lab for us to work in.  And Columbia’s like…  _ right there _ ,” Jane said, gesturing blindly.  “And… and…” she trailed off, reaching for Darcy and hugging her. “And I know I’m about to lose you as an intern, so maybe I can gain you as a friend if I’m close by?”

A lump rose in Darcy’s throat. Jane must have seen the brochures. “Columbia’s a pipe dream. Even if I  _ could _ afford it--”

“You think Tony’s going to pay you with peanuts or something?” Jane asked.

“If I’m not your intern, then what--”

“That’s for you to work out with him,” her friend replied. “But listen. You can get into Columbia. You can do the grad school thing. The Ph.D. thing. You can be something. Anything. Your debt’s paid off… and you’re one of the smartest people I know, Darce. I’m not letting you waste away over here.”

Darcy swallowed back the tears and nodded, leaning into the hug.  She watched over Jane’s shoulder as nine more months appeared on her timer.

She made a promise to herself right then and there.

She was getting a bracelet to cover the countdown. She’d meet her soulmate when she met them.

No more counting down the seconds.

 

* * *

 

 

4.

 

**FITZ - 10 months: 29 days: 02 hours: 37 minutes: 12 seconds**

 

* * *

 

 

Each time it flickered now, it added more time.

As his mind began to knit itself back together again, he became more and more frustrated.

“I’m never meeting them, am I?” he asked one morning. The kitchen wasn’t empty, but he wasn’t expecting a response. Another nine months had just been added to his countdown. “They keep moving farther away… or something…”

“How do you figure?” Daisy asked.

“Every time we come within a few weeks of meeting, more time gets added.”

“Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s you,” his friend offered. It was hardly helpful.

Fitz shot her a look. “That’s very uplifting, thank you.” He rolled his eyes and reached for the coffee pot. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re getting better,” she said brightly, raising her cup. “You’re loads better than you were at your first deadline. A million times better than you were at the second. And I’m sure in nine months, you’ll be the best  _ you _ possible.”

He found himself smiling in spite of everything. “You think I’m a million times better than I was?”

“Absolutely! And now, when they meet you in nine months, you’re gonna sweep them right off their feet.”

He gazed down into his coffee cup before pouring in the half and half. It swirled around, clouding the dark drink until it was a pale brown. “I still wish I was meeting them in seven weeks instead of nine months.”

“Yeah, well.  Get over it, Fitz,” Daisy teased.

 

* * *

 

5.

 

**DARCY - 8 days: 16 hours: 4 minutes: 28 seconds**

 

 

* * *

 

 

Just because Darcy had covered her timer didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of the flicker.

She’d kept the day circled in her calendar. A Friday.

And when it came and went with no beep from her timer, she’d pushed down the disappointment and moved on with her life. She fought back the desire to take a look at the time. She had finals next week and loads of studying to do.

It was a very good thing that she hadn’t met her soulmate the week before finals. A flicker was a good thing. It wasn’t the right time.

A buzz and vibration from her left hand almost made her throw her pencil across the room. Except she didn’t. She took a deep breath. It wasn’t her timer. There was no one else here.

She lifted her hand to reveal her phone.

It buzzed on her desk. An IM from Jane.

_ Janeywaneybobaney: Friday: 23:32 pm: ??? _

Darcy huffed out a laugh and tapped out a quick response.

_ LadyDarceline: Friday: 23:32 pm: Must have flickered. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ _

She tossed the phone back on her bed, not wanting to see Jane’s response.

There was much studying afoot!!!

Just because Darcy was aware of the flicker didn’t mean she knew how long she had left.

Eight days, sixteen hours, four minutes, twenty-eight seconds.

 

* * *

 

6.

 

**DARCY - 4 minutes: 12 seconds**

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jane was running late. As per usual.

But for once, Darcy didn’t have class and could wait as long as Dr. Procrastination deigned possible.

Dr. Pro-Foster-Nation?

Dr. Procrastination was lazier, but it made more sense, honestly.

“Janey…” she said softly, drumming her hands on the countertop. “You almost finished? Because I’m  _ famished _ . And there’s a chicken salad calling my name…”

“Five more minutes,” Jane said absently.

“I will give you a million dollars if you say my name right now.”

“That’s going towards my grant work, right, Darcy??” she asked absently.

“It’s a new grant. It’s called feed Darcy Lewis. She’s a starving grad student with nothing to lose.”

“Why’s she a grad student if she has a million dollars?”

“Five minutes?” Darcy asked, plopping her bag on the counter.

“On the dot,” Jane replied.

Darcy turned around and hopped up on the counter, raising her eyes to the door just in time to catch the baby blue gaze of someone who’d just come through it.

Something beeped.

She blinked repeatedly, glancing down at her phone in confusion. Something was beeping, what was beeping?

Her thumb was on the fingerprint scanner before she realized that  _ Doy, it’s your timer, genius. _

She pulled back the bracelet covering it, staring at the blinking zeros like it was some kind of a secret code she had to crack.

Her countdown had ended.

It had ended!

Her soulmate was--

She looked up once more, seeing her soulmate…  _ him _ … skid to a halt in front of her.  His eyes were wide. Brighter blue than she’d realized before. He was handsome.  _ Very _ handsome, in fact. He had brown hair. Curly or wavy or something. A stubbly, uneven beard. He wasn’t extremely tall, but he was much taller than Darcy. She wanted to reach out and touch him.  Make sure he was real. She could easily; he was mere feet away.

“It’s you,” she said finally. “Who’s… who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Leo Fitz,” he said, jutting his thumb towards his chest. His accent was adorable. Scottish. He dropped his hand soon after, jamming it in his pocket for his ID, which he flashed in front of her.  To be fair, he could have given her any name and she’d have believed him, but she figured the ID flash was probably a habit.

“I was in London for like two years,” she blurted. “I never met you there?”

He chuckled. “I was working for SHIELD. In the States.”

“Figures,” she said with a laugh.  “Oh, crapnuggets, I’m Darcy, by the way.  Darcy Lewis. I’m… uh… not a doctor. Not yet. Grad student. I think we were supposed to meet like a year ago and some change… but… I made some decisions. Life stuff. I mean… ” 

“I wasn’t ready yet, either,” he said, smoothly filling in where she trailed off. Filling in the gaps of her story. “I wasn’t ready.”

“But you’re ready now?” she asked.

“ _ YES _ ,” Jane called from behind her. “I’m almost ready, just five more minutes, Darce!”

“NOT YOU,” Darcy called. “Lunch is off, Janey. I’ll call you after work, okay?”

Jane ducked out from behind her computer, squinting up at Fitz before going back behind her monitor. “Yeah, okay. Probably wasn’t going to be finished anyway.”

Darcy closed her eyes for a moment, a smile spreading across her face. “As I was saying… but you’re ready now?”

Leo took two steps forward, reaching for her hand and helping her down from the counter.

“I am more than ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> xoxo!


End file.
